Chapter One
Zero
Iwake up face-down on cold concrete with a groan slipping out of my raw throat. For a few seconds, I just lie there, cheek pressed against the floor, trying to remember what part of my body belongs to me and what part belongs to the various drugs the lab likes to pump into my bloodstream for fun. I feel slightly disoriented, but isn’t that the fun part?
The concrete smells faintly like disinfectant. And blood. Mostly disinfectant, and I find that encouraging. I open one eye slowly. Bright white light pours down from the overhead fixtures like the sun decided to move underground just to personally ruin my morning. My skull pulses in time with the electric hum in the ceiling.
Fantastic.
"Good news, Zero," I mumble into the floor, my voice coming out raspy as fuck. Like gravel got into my throat overnight. Or like something crawled in there and died. Hard to rule either one out.
"You're not dead."
I pause, thinking about it. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but I’ve always been the type of guy to try to look on the bright side.
"Yet." The floor doesn't argue. Which, in my experience, means the statement is probably accurate.
I roll onto my back slowly, limbs heavy and uncooperative. Whatever they injected me with yesterday is still dragging its claws through my nervous system. My muscles feel sluggish, like someone replaced all the working parts of my body with damp sandbags.
The ceiling comes into view, and I blink slowly, trying to get my eyes to focus. Cracked plaster spreads above me in long crooked lines. I've spent a lot of time studying those cracks. When you live in a room that's barely bigger than a walk-in closet, you start memorizing stupid things.
The number of screws in the ventilation grate. The exact pitch the fluorescent lights make when the power fluctuates. The way shadows pool differently in the corners depending on the time of day… not that I know what time of day it actually is.
There's one long fracture that looks like a lightning bolt. Another that resembles a crooked spine. And then there's the one above the light fixture.
I squint at it. Still looks like a rabbit. Not a normal rabbit, obviously. A deeply disturbed rabbit. Possibly screaming. I tilt my head to the side, examining it from a different angle.
"Morning, screaming rabbit," I tell the ceiling.
Silence answers me.
"That's good," I decide, "if you start talking back, we're upgrading from 'coping' to 'officially insane.'" The rabbit remains unhelpfully mute.
The sane thing would be to stop addressing ceiling plaster. The sane thing also assumes you have better conversational options. I've been in this room long enough to know I'm working with limited material.
I exhale and rub my eyes with both hands. My fingers come away sticky with dried blood.
Huh.
"That feels… concerning."
I sit up slowly and inspect my arms. A small puncture mark blooms darkly in the crook of my elbow. Another injection site. The skin around it is bruised in ugly shades of purple and yellow. Colors that have no business being on a human body voluntarily. I poke it with my index finger, because I can’t seem to help myself. It stings slightly, causing me to cringe, and yet, I’m half tempted to do it again.
"Right," I mutter, "sedatives. Hormones. Mystery science juice."
The bruises have started layering lately. Fresh ones are sitting on top of old ones that never fully faded, like the lab is running out of clean real estate. They've started eyeing my ankles. I've made my feelings on that development very clear.
Repeatedly.
Loudly.
With my teeth.
I flex my fingers. At least everything still works. More or less. That's a win in this place. A faint mechanical whir clicks softly in the corner of the room. I glance up.
Red light.
Camera.
